


Clay Kids (a.k.a. Jet and Zuko and the Extremely Awkward Misunderstanding About Zuko's Parentage)

by closedcaptioning



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Iroh (Avatar) loves Tea, M/M, aangst haha, but not actually, i only wrote that for the pun aang isn't even a character yet haha, jet is not dead OMG, smellerbee is a mermaid at one point, tea loves him back, the most wholesome relationship :'(, who is pao i don't remember either, zuko/happiness on and off relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 15,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closedcaptioning/pseuds/closedcaptioning
Summary: “I don’t think you want someone like me in your group,” Lee says, stepping back, and Jet steps forward quick and grabs his wrist.“Believe me, you don’t know what I want,” he tells him, his eyes intent on Lee’s. On Lee’s gold eyes. “I get it, man. Dirty little secret. You think you’re the only one who’s got it? Me, I got off lucky--I take after my mom.”In which Zuko is Lee, Jet is alive, the Gaang is searching for Appa, and all roads lead to Ba Sing Se.A continuation of suzukiblu's War Child AU: https://white-knuckle.livejournal.com/81347.html READ THAT FIRST.
Relationships: Jet & Longshot & Smellerbee & Zuko, Jet & Zuko (Avatar), Jet/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 101
Kudos: 233





	1. “There’s a girl."

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suzukiblu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Clay Kids](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/707845) by suzukiblu. 



> This fic is a continuation of suzukiblu's war child AU on LiveJournal (linked in the summary).
> 
> And of course, all their work is AMAZING SO GO CHECK THAT OUT FIRST: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
> 
> This AU hit me with a medium-sized rock and pushed me straight over the cliff into jetko hell. I can't say I regret it.

_you weren't the only one who thought of us that way_

_i spend most nights awake, wide awake_

Zuko doesn’t _care_ about Song, doesn’t care about the way she said, “Oh, Lee,” in that voice when she saw him without his mask, a voice like he was personally breaking her heart in half just by _existing,_ and he especially doesn’t care about the way Jet grabbed her hand as they ran through the streets, about the look on his face when he told Zuko — told _Lee —_ that Song would be joining them.

Zuko doesn’t really know when he started thinking about himself and Jet and Smellerbee and Longshot as _them_.

But still, when Zuko had asked if that meant that they wouldn’t be coming around to watch out for him anymore, Jet had had a look of _panic_ on his face for half a second, like he was afraid that was what Zuko _wanted_ , and the memory of the way he said, “That’s okay, right?” all desperate and earnest, might be the only thing keeping Zuko going now as he waits tables on approximately half an hour of sleep.

Pao has already harrumphed at him a couple times because he hasn’t been so careful with the full cups of tea, and okay, when one of the customers had praised his uncle’s newest blend as “Wonderful!” he couldn’t help but remember the way Jet had blurted the same word to him last night, and, well, at least the tray was _empty_ when he dropped it.

Iroh takes him aside and asks him if he maybe wants to take a break or move to the back kitchen to wash dishes instead of waiting on customers, but Zuko just shakes his head and says, “I’m okay. I promise. I was just… distracted.”

Iroh gives him a long look. “So you did go out last night,” he says finally, quietly, almost like he’s talking to himself, and Zuko doesn’t even have enough time to _attempt_ to sputter out a response before his uncle is pushing a new tray into his hands and shooing him out into the shop to serve the waiting customers. 

“Uncle—” he begins, but Iroh just shakes his head and smiles.

“Let me know when one of your friends arrives,” he says with a wink. “I have some tea sweets I want them to sample.”

Zuko delivers the orders with his ears burning, and every time one of the girls who seem to be frequenting the shop more and more often smiles at him, he ducks his head and flinches away. Unfortunately, that sort of thing only seems to make them giggle louder as soon as his back is turned.

It doesn’t help that every time a new customer enters, Zuko’s entire body tenses, and he immediately has to look over just in case it might be Jet. Which is _stupid_ , of course, because Jet is probably off following Song around, because he did say they would need to keep an eye on her, so if anyone is going to visit him, it will probably be Smellerbee or Longshot, but Zuko can’t seem to help it.

When it’s almost midday and there’s still no sign of anyone he might want to see, Zuko ducks his uncle’s pitying gaze and tries to sulk into the back room for his lunch break, but Pao frowns and gestures towards a table near the door. “There’s a girl,” he snaps. “She’s been waiting for a server for the last five minutes.”

So Zuko sighs and forces himself to work up a smile that probably looks a little painful as he approaches the table, but he can be forgiven, he’s exhausted, and _why_ didn’t Jet come? Why didn’t _anyone,_ when they knew he would be waiting?

“Hi, welcome,” he says to the girl, half-listless, his eyes on the door. “What can I —”

The girl makes a choked noise, and _that_ gets Zuko’s attention. His gaze is yanked back to her, and he finds himself staring directly into ocean-blue eyes that he never thought he would see again.

“ _You_ ,” gasps Katara.


	2. “I’ve known the whole time."

_wish cast into the sky, i’m moving on / sweet beginnings do arise, she knows i was wrong_

  
  


Katara surges to her feet, her hand dropping to the stoppered flask at her waist, and Zuko sees his entire life pass in front of his eyes. No, that’s not right; he sees _Lee’s_ entire life flash in front of him, because the Avatar and all his friends are the only other ones in Ba Sing Se who know the truth about his name, about his scar and his uncle and his past, and Katara can bring the world he has so carefully constructed crumbling down around his ears in an instant, with a single _word._

Zuko had no idea how much that thought would _hurt_ , but he thinks of the look of betrayal on Jet’s face if he finds out who his father is, who _Zuko_ is, and his body moves of its own accord.

He can hear his uncle in his head, _breathe, Zuko, just breathe_ , and Zuko does. He fights down the panic rising in his chest and _moves_. His first instinct is not to bend, which he is grateful for; the days in this city have taught him that much, at least. Instead, his hands dart out, lightning-quick, grabbing Katara’s wrists before she can uncork her flask. His speed startles her, and Zuko is pinning her back in her chair before she can react.

Zuko takes a deep breath and leans in. He only has a few moments to make her listen; he needs to get her attention. “Please,” he hisses, hoping his desperation in his voice is clear, because it’s all he has left. “Please, don’t say anything. I can explain. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Katara’s whole body jerks, and she goes stiff as a board. “Why should I believe you?” she snaps, _entirely_ too loud; anyone sitting at a nearby table could hear them. “I knew it wasn’t safe here. I’ve known the whole time. You’re —” 

If Zuko could, he would press a hand over her mouth, force her to swallow his name or his title or whatever other dangerous words she is about to say. But both his hands are clutching Katara’s wrists, and so he does the only thing he can — he covers Katara’s mouth with his.

It’s not a kiss, not really. It’s nothing like Jin and her flickering fire; it’s _nothing_ like Jet, even with the mask between them. But Katara goes completely still, and two or three seconds pass and Zuko decides that maybe he can move away without her announcing his secret to the entire tea shop. He pulls back far enough just to hiss, “Let’s just take this outside.” 

There is fear and confusion in Katara’s eyes, but also steely determination; either way, Zuko must look really desperate, because she nods once and he releases her.

Zuko takes one slow step back, hands up to show he means no harm, but he keeps his eyes trained on her — she isn’t reaching for her flask yet, but she can attack in an instant, he’s seen her do it — and he thinks maybe he can do this. He can handle this, somehow, make her see he’s started a new life, that he wants nothing to do with her and the Avatar, doesn’t even want to hear the word “Avatar” again for the rest of his life — 

“Lee?” says a voice from the doorway, a voice Zuko _knows_ , and everything comes crashing down.


	3. "I won't go out with you."

_i’ve run long enough from what i know is right_

_the sands of yesterday are sliding through the clutched fingers of light_

Lee looks unforgivably _guilty_ , like he’d just been caught breaking the law — no, Jet amends, because he’s seen Lee evade the _police_ with less chagrin. Jet forces himself to relax as he approaches, keeping an easy smile on his face. He doesn’t spare the girl a second glance; he’s not here to judge who Lee does and doesn’t want to kiss.

Not that it doesn’t _hurt_ , a little, that only yesterday Lee was holding Jet’s hand and smiling at him with a smile that could make flowers grow, and now he’s kissing a girl in the middle of the tea shop in front of everyone like he doesn’t _care_ who knows.

But Lee is looking at him with those wide golden eyes — like fireflies, Song said, and she’s _right_ — and he just wants Lee to be _okay_ , to stop looking at Jet like he’s terrified.

“Jet,” Lee says hoarsely, and then before he can say anything else, the girl moves in a blur. She snatches a cup off the table next to her, hurls it at Lee, and bolts for the door as it collides, and only then does Jet get a good look at her face.

He balks for a moment, and then it all connects, the Avatar, the flyer, and _Lee_ , oh spirits, Katara must have been looking for _Jet_ and somehow stumbled upon this boy with too much Fire inside him to be hidden even in the shadow of a city like this, because of _course_ Lee would find himself in the company of every one of the most dangerous girls in Ba Sing Se.

It’s all Jet’s fault. All he wanted was to protect Lee, to _help_ him, and he’s made things so much worse.

Katara’s eyes meet Jet’s for a single moment, and he can see the shock that steals across her face as she recognizes him. In that half-instant before she bolts out the door, Jet realizes that if she gets away, it will mean the end of everything he’s been struggling to build here in the city — the end of whatever is happening between him and Lee, before it even really begins — so he drops into a crouch and sweeps her feet out from under her.

Katara hits the ground and _rolls_ , but Jet is faster and much bigger than her, and he pins her easily. He’s careful of her hands, remembering the creep of ice that easily could have suffocated him in the forest, and once he has her wrists in his grip, he wrenches the flask of water — an unassuming but deadly weapon in Katara’s hands — off her hip and tosses it as far away as possible.

Katara thrashes beneath him, but it’s futile. Jet turns his attention from the rage in her bright blue eyes to Lee, who is wincing and clutching his head.

“Are you all right?” Jet says, ignoring the murmurs from the tea shop patrons who are gathering around to witness the scene unfolding.

Lee groans. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Mushi is pushing through the crowd to get to his nephew’s side, and Jet turns his attention back to Katara, who has given up struggling and is now glaring at him.

“You’re a _monster_ ,” she spits. 

This is not exactly how Jet pictured his reunion with her would go, but her reaction is to be expected. He opens his mouth to respond, but one of the customers standing nearby answers before he does.

“You attacked that boy!” he accuses hotly, gesturing to Lee. Mushi is leading him to a chair, and a cluster of concerned customers are looking on. Murmurs of agreement from the crowd accompany the man’s accusation.

Lee shakes his head. “It was my fault,” he says clearly, and Jet can hear Katara’s breath hitch in her throat. He’s equally shocked.

“It was _my_ fault,” Lee says again, and now all eyes are on him. “I — took advantage of her. I’m very sorry. I didn’t — I shouldn’t have —” he flounders for words for another moment, and then he gets to his feet, plucks something off the floor, and approaches Jet.

“Get off her,” he says with gravity, and Jet quickly complies. Lee hesitates, and then he offers Katara his hand.

She gives him a withering look and climbs to her feet on her own. Lee drops his hand, but then holds out the object he picked up — her flask. Katara stares at him for a long moment, and everyone in the tea shop seems to hold their breath, but finally she takes it from him suspiciously. She cuts her gaze to Jet, and back to Lee.

“You may have everyone else wrapped around your little finger,” she snaps, “but I can see _right through you_.”

“I swear,” says Lee, the most earnest Jet has ever heard him, “I want _nothing_ to do with you and your friends. I’ll leave you alone — just please, let us be.”

Katara gives him an unreadable look, but she turns towards the door. Lee moves forward, and she whirls on him, hand on the cork of her flask.

“I wasn’t — I just —” Lee flushes and nudges the door open with his foot. “I won’t go out with you. I was only — my uncle told me it was always the polite thing to do. Holding the door for a girl.” 

Katara stares for a moment in amazement, and then glances back into the shop. The customers are still watching, some of them even glaring outright. Her hand relaxes on the flask, just a little, but enough that Jet notices. With a final nod, she steps outside and disappears into the street.

Jet lets out a small sigh of relief and turns to Lee. “Lee, that was —”

Lee interrupts him. “I need to tell you something,” he says, still watching the street like he expects Katara to reappear. “Smellerbee and Longshot too. Everybody.”

Jet blinks, bewildered. “Now?”

Lee’s eyes meet his, and Jet shivers a little. The fire in his gaze is as bright as a signal beacon. “Now,” he says.

  
  



	4. "I didn't know you were a mermaid."

_hearts are wasted, lives are broken / one more point of contention / i need some intervention_

Zuko knows that if he tells his uncle what he intends to do, he will lose his nerve. So with Jet in tow, he pushes past the crowd to get to the back room, and strips off his apron.

Iroh follows him. “Nephew,” he says, voice low and urgent, “do not make any rash decisions.”

Zuko grits his teeth and faces his uncle. “I won’t.” Iroh’s eyes are full of concern, and Zuko has to turn away. “Come on,” he says to Jet, “we have to leave now.”

Jet glances between Zuko, determination written into the set of his jaw, and Iroh, who is looking at his nephew with worry, and nods. As he ushers Jet out the back door, Zuko forbids himself from glancing back. He can picture it anyway, his uncle standing forlorn in the back alley behind the tea shop, gazing out at them with an unbearable _sadness_ . But Iroh can’t understand that Zuko has to do this, has to make it clear to all these people who call themselves his friends — _Lee’s_ friends — that he is putting them in incredible danger at every moment just by _existing_ near them. 

As Lee, he has taken advantage of their kindness, but now this is where Zuko draws the line. They accepted him as three-quarters Fire, but there’s no way they will accept him as a firebender. There’s no way they will accept him as the Fire Lord’s son.

“Lee —” Jet reaches for him, and Zuko flinches away, ignoring his look of hurt. You don’t understand, he thinks. Once he knows the truth, Jet will hate him so much for every embrace. Zuko thinks about Jet’s mouth on his Blue Spirit mask, about the look in his eyes when he said _Please join us_ , his hand warm and firm on the back of Zuko’s neck. When Zuko told him about the Fire in his blood and Jet hadn’t backed down, hadn’t pulled away, _maybe_ , then, Zuko had thought it would be okay. He could be with them, could be Lee _and_ Zuko and not have to lie anymore.

But Katara’s sky-blue stare had reminded him about everything he’d been trying to leave behind, and he knows now there’s no escaping his past. Especially not as long as the Avatar is in Ba Sing Se.

“That was Katara,” Jet says, looking at him. “She —”

“I know,” Zuko interrupts, and Jet’s mouth goes all hard and flat.

“Right,” he says, and there’s bitterness in his voice. “You two seemed pretty friendly. Why didn’t you tell me you were such good friends with the Avatar’s sidekick?” 

“We’re not friends,” says Zuko, wondering just how much Jet saw. “She threw a teacup at my head.”

“Maybe she’s not _your_ friend,” Jet says, not looking at him but frowning at the ground, “but you seemed like you wanted to be _hers_.”

Okay, thinks Zuko, so he _did_ see. “I’ll explain it all,” he promises, and even to his own ears it sounds weak, but Jet just sighs a little, and oh. _Oh_. Is Jet _jealous_? 

Zuko thinks about Jin, about _I don’t think that girl’s good for you_ , about how Jet didn’t pull away when Zuko took his hand, and, well, he _knew_ Jet liked him, he hadn’t left Zuko’s side for a second when he’d been sick, but suddenly it all seems so _different_. 

Maybe because he knows now that this might be the last time Jet will ever willingly speak to him, but Zuko suddenly pictures Jet leaning towards him in the alley, and he thinks that maybe Lee should have lifted up the mask and kissed him back while he had the chance.

And okay, as soon as the truth is out of his mouth Jet will never want to see him again, but _right now_ — Zuko takes a deep breath and swallows against the fire rising inside him — if he were to yank Jet into the shadows of the alley, wrench that stupid piece of wheat out of his mouth, press him against the wall, this would be the last chance he would have to do so. It would be selfish and dangerous, but if he wanted to, he could.

And Jet may be the same thing in a different package, but Zuko doesn’t think it would be _anything_ like Jin.

If Zuko even so much as _looks_ at Jet right now, he is going to burn down this entire _city_ , so he focuses on breathing steady and keeping his gaze straight ahead, and his eyes fall on a familiar figure stumbling towards them. 

It’s Smellerbee, wild-eyed and drenched from head to toe. Jet raises an eyebrow as she approaches. “I didn’t know you were a mermaid,” he drawls. “Have a nice afternoon dip in the river with Song?”

Smellerbee shakes her head violently. “Jet,” she gasps, “they took them.”

Jet is instantly at attention. “What? Who did?”

“The Dai Li.” Smellerbee is trembling. “We were at her house — they must’ve followed us. They were waiting for me, and Longshot —” tears choke off her words and she covers her face.

Jet steps forward and wraps his arms around her, and Zuko catches a glimpse of the light of fury and fear burning in his eyes. “It’s okay. Just tell me what happened. We’ll get them back, I promise.”

“They chased me over the rooftops,” Smellerbee gasps out, “and then I fell — I landed in a fountain, and I held my breath and stayed under. I thought maybe they hadn’t seen me. When I came up for air, there was still one guard, and he saw me — he would’ve —” she rakes in a gasping breath “Longshot saved me. He attacked the guard. I should have — he distracted them. And they took him, they grabbed him and they had Song too, I saw them. They took them and I —” Smellerbee’s body is wracked with sobs, and Jet holds her closer.

“We’ll get them back,” he says, and his voice is filled with more rage than Zuko has ever heard from him. “I swear, we’ll save them. Whatever it takes.”

Zuko hesitates, but they don’t know who he is. Not yet. “I — I can help.”

Jet looks at him, determination in his gaze. “Take Smellerbee back to our apartment. Make sure you aren’t followed.” He untangles himself from her. “I’m going to get help.”

“From _who_?” Zuko calls, but Jet doesn’t answer as he disappears down the street.

  
  
  



	5. "I always listen to you."

_it’s all too loud / i sink my teeth into my fingers / blood forms branches in the water_

Katara’s heart hammers in her chest as she stumbles away from the tea shop. _Zuko_ is in Ba Sing Se, _Jet_ is in Ba Sing Se, they’re working _together_ and none of her friends are safe. No one in this city is safe as long as a firebender is behind these supposedly-impenetrable walls.

A woman and a small child are strolling down the street. As they pass Katara, she overhears a snatch of conversation. “... love some tea, we could stop in for a cup—” 

“Don’t go in there!” Katara blurts at them before she can stop herself, thinking _firebender, Fire Nation, Jet._ “It’s dangerous!”

The woman’s head jerks up to face her. A mixture of fear and confusion passes across her face as she meets Katara’s wild eyes, and she quickens her pace, yanking her son closer as she hurries away.

Katara can feel her breathing quicken. This is all wrong. She needs to find someone who will help her. _The Earth King will listen_ , she thinks, and takes off running towards their house. She’ll find Aang and Toph and Sokka, and they’ll figure it out together — there must be some adult who will be able to help — 

“Katara? Where are you going in such a hurry?” The familiar voice slows Katara’s footsteps, and she whirls around to find herself face-to-face with Joo Dee and her omnipresent smile.

Katara embraces the startled woman and almost sobs with relief. “Joo Dee,” she gasps, “thank goodness! No one will listen! I need to get a message to someone in charge.”

“Oh, Katara.” Joo Dee’s smile wavers for an instant as her eyes flicker up to something over Katara’s head, but a moment later her focus is back. “I always listen to you. Tell me what is wrong.”

Little warning bells go off in Katara’s head, because Joo Dee has been less than helpful so far during their time in Ba Sing Se, but the tidal wave of relief that crashes through her at the idea of someone else taking care of things drowns the bells out. “There’s a firebender here in the city. Zuko’s been hunting us since we were with the Southern Water Tribe. He must have tracked us here — and he has an ally!” Katara pauses, considering how to make sense of Jet and his behavior. In the forest, he’d hated the Fire Nation with a burning passion; he’d been willing to sacrifice a village just to strike a blow at them. But Katara had seen how quickly he’d jumped to his feet at Zuko’s command. And now the desperation in Zuko’s voice comes back to her, the look in his eyes when he’d said _“Please,”_ and how he easily could have hurt her to keep her from shouting out his true identity, but instead he’d… kissed her. Katara feels herself flush at the memory, and the heat in her cheeks only stokes her rage. How _dare_ he?

_But he apologized_ , says a tiny voice in the back of her head, a voice that Katara quashes in a second. _To keep his cover intact, maybe_. Whatever he meant by his words, Katara can’t dwell on it; he is the Fire Lord’s son, Jet is a terrorist, and they need to be dealt with.

“This sounds very complicated, Katara, and you look like you’ve had quite a good scare.” Joo Dee has one arm firmly around Katara’s shoulders, and is guiding her down the street and around a corner. “Why don’t we head home and I’ll have someone bring you some soothing tea?”

“What?” Katara jerks away from Joo Dee. “Didn’t you hear me? We’re all in danger!”

Joo Dee’s smile is unchanging. “No one is in danger. There is no war in Ba Sing Se. You do not need to worry about that here.”

Panic creeps through Katara, and she takes a slow step backwards, realizing suddenly that Joo Dee has guided her into a side street between buildings. There is no one else around.

“I want to speak with the Earth King,” she says unsteadily, and one hand instinctively moves towards her flask. The other reaches up to clutch her mother’s necklace. “I need to let him know.”

“The Earth King is a very busy man,” says Joo Dee. “I will pass your message along.” And then there is a heavy thud behind her and a grip like iron seizes around her wrists, stopping her hands halfway to her flask. A hand clamps over Katara’s mouth, and when she tries to bite down, she finds it’s made of stone.


	6. "Then I like the way you taste."

_pink ribbon scars that never forget / i tried so hard to cleanse these regrets_

Smellerbee is a small, damp ball of misery, curled up against the wall in the tiny apartment. Zuko wishes, badly, that his uncle were here right now. Iroh would know exactly what to say, while Zuko hovers awkwardly, wondering if he should crouch next to her and grope for some words that might bring her a small amount of comfort.

But anything he might say would sound naive and shallow right now. Zuko tries to imagine his uncle standing next to him in this cramped little apartment, looking at this girl whose terror and sorrow drapes over her as palpable and heavy as a thick blanket. She’s shivering _,_ he realizes, and he can hear his uncle’s voice in the back of his mind. _You should help warm her up._

The kitchen is not so much a kitchen as it is a rickety table with three legs, propped up on the wall next to a dirty-looking sink and a few cups and plates. Zuko has some tea leaves from the shop stuffed deep in his pocket to take back home, as per his uncle’s offhand suggestion earlier that day — Iroh often experiments in their own apartment with different blends and flavors, and Zuko has grown used to carrying a few samples home. 

It takes him much longer than he would like to admit to brew two cups of tea. Zuko wastes a good amount of time on actually getting the fire started — he’s still not used to using the primitive flint and steel to spark up a flame — and he probably lets the leaves steep too long, exactly what Iroh is always reminding him _not_ to do, but when he shuffles back in the room and offers Smellerbee a steaming cup, she accepts it with a mixture of surprise and gratitude.

They sit in silence for a few moments, sipping, and Zuko is startled to find it doesn’t taste half-bad. Nowhere near what his uncle makes, of course, but not terrible.

Smellerbee is the first one to break the silence. “You… made this?” 

Zuko swallows. “Yeah. Guess I’ve learned a few things in the tea shop.”

Smellerbee nods, slowly, and looks down into her drink. “It tastes _good_. How do you and Mushi do it?”

Zuko shrugs. “My uncle says that to brew a good pot of tea, you need to pour a little of yourself into the mix.” Iroh’s proverbs, which always seemed to be infuriatingly roundabout to Zuko, seem to fit well into this unfamiliar space between him and Smellerbee. _Thank you, uncle._

“Oh.” Smellerbee lifts the cup back to her mouth. “Then I like the way you taste.”

Zuko can feel heat creep up into his cheeks. Out of all the things he’s done in Ba Sing Se, he has the strange feeling that this is the one his uncle would be most proud of. He settles in against the wall and takes another sip. “Thank you,” he remembers to mumble, almost too late, but Smellerbee doesn’t seem to mind. 

The silence descends once more, and Zuko is content to let it linger, but after a few more seconds, Smellerbee sets her cup down and takes a deep, shaky breath, like she’s steadying herself for something. 

Zuko scrambles for words. What can he say that will offer Smellerbee any comfort? He can tell her that Jet will return, possibly with help, and they will find Longshot and Song. They will rescue everyone, and everything will be okay. Words are so inadequate, but maybe they will be enough for the moment.

Smellerbee blinks down at the floor for a second, but then forces her gaze up to meet his, chin jutting out, unflinching. “Jet likes you, you know. A lot.”

Zuko’s mind goes blank and his stomach flips over. “I — I know,” he says quietly.

“No, you don’t.” Smellerbee holds his gaze, and frowns a little. “I’ve never — Jet _worries_ about you, all the time. When you were sick, I thought he was going to go crazy watching over you. He didn’t leave your side for _days_.”

Zuko resists the urge to say “I know” again, and instead, just nods. The truth is, he _doesn’t_ know Jet, not the way Smellerbee does. 

She gives him a long, hard stare. “You seem so _angry_ all the time. You were different after you were sick, but the change was so abrupt, none of us knew what to make of it.” She shakes her head slowly, and Zuko feels guilt twinge in his chest. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, which is all he can really say. He does know that Jet likes him, and he knows he’s been sending all three of them mixed messages with his behavior, but when he explains everything, none of this will matter anymore. The thought makes Zuko’s stomach twist up into his throat, and he sets his cup down. Smellerbee will hate him. Jet will hate him, and Zuko knows he deserves it.

Smellerbee rolls her eyes up to the ceiling. “Have you ever been with someone before?”

Zuko is caught completely off-guard. “What?”

“You have a certain look.” Smellerbee is staring at his face, and Zuko’s hand instinctively flies up to his scar. She bites her lip and looks away. “That’s not what I mean. You have the face and the hands of someone who has never really had to work for a living. Before you came here, did you spend much time with other kids your age?”

Zuko can feel his face grow hot. “What does that have to do with anything?” he snaps, and Smellerbee gives him a long look. Oh. His face grows hotter.

“For a boy, you’re pretty,” she says. “No one’s ever told you that before?”

Zuko shudders a little, involuntarily. “No,” he lies. His mother called him and Azula _my little cuties_ , his uncle calls him _my handsome nephew, growing up so fast_ , but the only time someone outside of his family had ever called him anything like that was a long time ago. He had just been starting on his quest to find the Avatar. The thick bandage over his eye had been removed only two days before he received Commander Zhao’s invitation to meet aboard his ship.

Zuko had accepted, despite his uncle’s warnings that Zhao was a self-serving climber. He had thought, foolishly, that he could trick the man into revealing something important. There had been a smaller part of him that might have wondered, just a little, if maybe Zhao had come to make amends in place of Zuko’s father. The Fire Lord would never stoop so low as to come himself, but perhaps he was sending a low-ranking officer to broker some kind of peace with his estranged son.

That thought was banished as soon as Zuko set foot aboard the vessel and saw Zhao’s smirk. The long formal dinner had been several hours of thinly veiled threats. By the end of the night, Zuko was steaming, and Iroh was shooing him out the door, telling Zhao they had to return to their ship.

“Of course,” Zhao had said with a self-assured grin that had made Zuko want to melt his face off. “You must still need plenty of rest in order to recuperate fully from your Agni Kai. That kind of battle really leaves its…. mark on its participants, don’t you think?”

Zuko’s scar burned like a brand on his face, and only his uncle’s hand on his arm, gentle yet firm, reminded him to clench his teeth and breath. Maiming Zhao would only make everything much harder in the long run. 

“Good night, Commander,” Iroh had said and turned to leave, but Zhao wasn’t finished.

“It really is a shame. Fire Lord Ozai is a very handsome man. Even at a young age, his children are both so…” Zhao’s gaze swept over his body, tongue darting out to moisten his lips, and Zuko had never felt so shamefully, disgustingly _naked_. “ _..._ so _pretty.”_

Zuko’s entire body went stiff with revulsion, and the skin on his arm burned; it took him a moment to realize it was because Iroh’s hand had suddenly become hotter. “Let’s go, Zuko,” his uncle hissed, and they had left without even a customary bow. When they returned to the ship, Zuko had retired to his room without a word, and it had been a long time before his hands had stopped trembling with a mixture of rage and revulsion.

Neither of them spoke of what had taken place aside from a cursory remark from Iroh the next morning, watching Zhao’s ship steam away.

“That man,” he had said, with more venom in his voice than Zuko had ever thought to hear from his mild uncle, “had better watch his back.”

Now, in this tiny apartment in Ba Sing Se, sitting across from this girl, Zuko thinks about how Zhao called him “ _pretty,_ ” like it was a word that made him _filthy_ , somehow, and tries not to shudder again. He forces himself to think instead of the way Jet had looked at him in the alley behind the tea shop, like Zuko was some sort of answer, and of the way Jin smiled at him with the lantern flame shadows dancing in her hair, and the way their kiss had flickered in him like lightning. He thinks about Smellerbee, right here in front of him, who cares about him, and worries about Song and Longshot and Jet, maybe for all the wrong reasons, because she doesn't know who he is. She doesn’t know how _dangerous_ he is.

“Do you have any more tea?” asks Smellerbee, holding up her empty cup, and Zuko nods and rises to his feet. The pot has gone cold, but this time, he doesn’t bother with the flint and steel.


	7. "Shh. Just let me."

_i’m more than willing to offer myself / do you want my presence or need my help / who knows where that might lead_

Jet’s head is throbbing. He blinks hard to clear his vision, and when that doesn’t work, he stumbles to a stop and swipes at his face with the back of his hand, which comes away sticky with blood. Nothing he wasn’t expecting.

He forces himself to keep moving, landing as lightly as possible as he leaps from rooftop to rooftop. Jet allows himself a glance over his shoulder, and is assured that the men from the alleyway have given up the chase; they were half-drunk anyway, but there were a lot of them, and for a moment when they had closed in, Jet had wondered if he might not be able to get away.

He shouldn’t have worried. He can handle the _Dai Li_ , after all — a few ex-prison inmates were no problem. Still, he thinks, wincing as a rough landing forces him into a roll, it would have been a lot nicer if he had seen the man with the broken bottle coming after him. It would’ve saved him a few extra cuts and bruises.

The sunset stretches shadows over the streets of Ba Sing Se, and Jet leaps one final time, catching himself on the windowsill of the apartment. Someone’s closed the shutters, which is something he told Smellerbee never to do. Jet grits his teeth and hooks his sword under the edge, prying the window open with some effort. With a sigh of relief, he tumbles into the apartment — and finds himself, an instant later, with a sword pressing lightly against his throat.

“Jet?” Lee’s quiet voice, from directly behind him. Jet heaves a sigh of relief as the sword falls away, and he turns to face Lee.

“Thanks for that,” Jet drawls. “Really. I hadn't had my daily heart attack yet.”

“Keep your voice down. Where have you been?” Lee scowls at him. “Smellerbee was worried. We thought you wouldn’t make curfew, and the Dai Li —”

Jet shrugs and brushes past him. “Where _is_ Smellerbee?”

He can hear Lee sigh. “She’s _asleep_ ,” he hisses. “so be quiet, please.”

Jet spots the still form swaddled in blankets in the corner of the room, and relaxes. Smellerbee looks so small under the covers, and it makes his heart ache. She relies on him, and so far, he’s let her down. After a day of investigating, all he managed to coerce out of the scum of Ba Sing Se was two words that just _might_ lead him to Longshot.

“Jet.” Lee is standing next to him now, studying his face with a frown. “You’re bleeding.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Jet reaches up to the gash on his forehead, but Lee catches his wrist before he can explore the extent of the damage. “What’re you doing?”

“Come sit down.” Lee leads him away from Smellerbee, towards the tiny kitchen, and points to the floor. Jet obeys, dubious, and watches Lee rummages through the cupboards. He emerges with a few rags, and douses one of them in water before shuffling back towards Jet.

Jet holds very still as Lee kneels next to him, eyes bright in the slowly-growing darkness of the apartment. He’s close enough for Jet to feel the heat of his breath stirring against his cheek, close enough for Jet to see the tiny frown line that appears between Lee’s eyebrows as he studies the wound on Jet’s face.

“Who did this?” Lee’s eyes meet Jet’s before flicking back up. “What did they use?”

“A broken bottle.” Jet swallows as Lee leans in even closer. “It’s really no big deal. I got worse from the Dai Li.”

Lee sighs, a short, exasperated huff, and reaches up with the damp rag. “Hold still.”

A noise of pain uncurls itself in the back of Jet’s throat, and he jerks away. “What —” 

Lee presses two fingers over Jet’s lips, cutting off his question. “Shh. Just let me.” He reaches up again and begins to dab at the dried blood with the rag. Jet bites down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep quiet, and thinks instead about how warm Lee’s hand is against his mouth. The apartment is nearly dark, but Lee works steadily, cleaning the edges of the cut with precise strokes. Jet tries to stifle a few more noises of pain, but Lee notices, and his touch grows more gentle.

Once he finishes the cleaning, Lee ties the dry rags into a bandage around Jet’s head. Jet is silent, watching him work. The shadows that have been steadily creeping into the apartment paint Lee’s face in half-darkness; the line of his jaw, the firm set of his mouth, and the smooth pink skin of his scar are all thrown sharply into relief. Jet takes in a deep breath and holds it until his lungs burn. He wonders if this is what Jin felt when she kissed Lee, what _Katara_ felt when Lee leaned towards her in the tea shop. 

Heat prickles beneath Jet’s skin like lightning. Lee ties a final knot and moves to pull away, but Jet’s hand shoots out and catches his sleeve.

Lee’s eyebrows draw together and he looks right at Jet, confused. But he doesn’t pull away. 

Jet breathes out slowly and before he can think too hard about it, he brings Lee’s hand up to his mouth and kisses the inside of his wrist, slow and gentle.

Jet can feel Lee’s pulse skipping against his mouth. Lee shudders silently, and Jet thinks _he’s going to push me away, he’s going to leave and never come back,_ but then Lee draws in a shaky breath and his eyelids flutter shut. 

Jet’s heart all but stops. Lee is stunningly, _blindingly_ beautiful — half-shrouded in darkness, a faint blush rising in his cheeks, lips slightly parted, _spirits_ , Jet wants him. Jet wants to kiss him _everywhere_ , wants to take Lee in his arms and trace his scar with his tongue, wants to hold him so tightly his anger and sadness melt away, until Lee melts into his arms and kisses him back, oh, _Lee_.

Jet likes him way too much.

“Jet,” Lee says, a half-whisper, and Jet’s stomach twists up into his throat. He wants to hear Lee say his name like that again a _thousand_ times, breathless and desperate, wants it so bad he _aches_ when Lee pulls away gently. “Jet,” he says again, “I can’t — everything — Longshot and Katara —” 

Jet feels like someone punched him in the gut. _Lake Laogai_ , he thinks, and then he pictures Lee and Katara in the tea shop, standing so close, his hands on her wrists, and he wants to vomit. “Right,” he mumbles. A look of pain flashes across Lee’s face and Jet wishes he could reach up and smooth out the frown lines creasing around his eyes. But Lee would never let him. 

“ _No_ ,” Lee says vehemently, and Jet is startled. “I wasn’t — it’s not you. I need,” he takes a deep breath and covers his face with his hands. “I need to tell you the truth.”

Something cold and hard settles in Jet’s stomach. “The truth about what?”

Lee drops his hands and keeps his gaze on the floor. “Can we go somewhere else?”

“Where?” Guilt coils in Jet’s chest. Lee looks like he’s about to fall apart, and it’s all Jet’s fault. He should never — he shouldn’t have let his feelings blind him like this. He went too far, and he hurt Lee, badly, somehow. What is _wrong_ with him?

“Anywhere. Outside. The roof.” Lee isn’t looking at him. Jet wishes he would just glance up, wishes he could just get a glimpse of those firefly eyes once so he would know that everything might be okay. But he doesn’t, and Jet gets to his feet, feeling like the worst person to ever walk the streets of Ba Sing Se.

“Okay,” he says quietly, and Lee follows him over to the window. 

Jet only has one foot up on the sill when he hears the rustling from the corner of the apartment. He glances over his shoulder and finds Smellerbee sitting upright in her nest of blankets and staring at him and Lee.

“ _What_ are you doing?” she demands. “Are you leaving without me?” There’s a hint of panic in her voice, and Jet quickly shakes his head.

“We’re just going to the roof to — talk,” he says, glancing at Lee, who is still not looking at him. “We’ll be right back.”

Smellerbee regards them suspiciously. “I want to come,” she says, and Jet winces.

“Bee —”

“It’s okay,” Lee says quietly, and he looks at Jet and then at Smellerbee. “It’s okay,” he repeats. “You both deserve to know.”

  
  



	8. "I can go anywhere I decide to."

_i don’t know why / i had to try / living my life on the other side_

Song’s cell is damp and cold and there is a girl lying next to her.

Song holds very still. She only regained consciousness a few minutes ago, and was careful to keep her eyes mostly closed as she absorbed as much information about her surroundings as she could. The cell is very small and there are no windows; it’s very dark. The only light comes from some eerie green source that’s out of her field of vision. The good news: no guard is watching her. At least, no one who looks like they are definitely part of the Dai Li.

Song doesn’t know what to make of the girl.

She isn’t dressed like she’s from the Earth Kingdom; her clothes made of some strange material that shimmers a little in the light, different from the woven green and brown displayed on the clothes of people in the city. Song hasn’t been in Ba Sing Se for very long, but it's obvious even to her that this girl is from somewhere far away.

Then again, maybe she isn’t. Maybe she’s a Dai Li agent. 

Right now, Song isn’t regretting her choice to follow Jet, though she definitely should be. It’s unlikely that he knew she would get captured, because first of all, why would the Dai Li care enough about a herbalist girl from the backcountry to set up an elaborate scheme to capture her, and second of all, he had assigned his two friends to guard her, and it wasn’t their fault that they hadn’t been able to fight the secret police, and third, there was something raw in his eyes when he looked at her in the dark, and again, when he watched Lee in the apartment. Song badly wants to believe in those eyes; it was why she followed him in the first place. Her father told her a thousand times that she was too trusting and too emotional and too _kind_ ; Song had never thought these were bad things up until she watched Lee lead her ostrich-horse away into the night.

Song shuts her eyes and thinks instead of what her father would say if he could see her here now. Her strong, proud father, whose fire burns in his daughter even now, long after he’s gone. Her father, who was by all rights a deserter, who by all rights no one should have missed — he couldn’t even bend, and he had only ever been a tank driver in the army. Her father, who taught her how to make herself dangerous, how to run silently and blend in, how to throw knives and how to not be hit by them. Her father, who, when she was little, asking him why he never left their small village, would always answer with a smile, “I can go anywhere I decide to. But why would I want to, when I have everything I need right here?” And he would snatch her up and tickle her, and she would shriek and collapse into hysterical giggles.

Song’s father, who she had last seen that day in the barn when she had returned from her chores a little early and found a stranger standing over him. A stranger whose hands licked red and gold with flame. Her father had told her to run, _begged_ her to leave, and she might have escaped then, unscathed, if she hadn’t been frozen to the spot by the fear in her father’s eyes, by the fear that clouded in her own chest like smoke, like ash settling in her lungs.

But her father had taught her well. She ran. Just not quite fast enough.

Song gropes in her sleeve and counts silently, _one two three four -_ she threw half her knives when the Dai Li cornered her in the alley and at least one of them hit its mark; she _saw_ the man wince and grab at his shoulder, and the memory gives her a grim satisfaction. Her captors must have found the other two hidden in her shoes before they tossed her in here, but they missed three sewn into her skirt and one knotted into her braid.

Song reaches for a knife and once she feels the cool, familiar metal press into her palm, she opens her eyes and shifts over to face the girl, who has begun to stir. Song watches carefully as she groans and opens her eyes, reaching up to touch a dark, swelling bruise on her forehead, and she sees the exact moment that the girl’s eyes land on her.

They are the most electric blue eyes Song has ever seen, and they are filled with a wide-eyed, innocent fear that makes her swallow hard and slide the knife back up into her sleeve. “Hi,” she whispers, and the girl flinches back. “I’m not going to hurt you — I’m an herbalist. Are you all right?”

The girl eyes her, wary. “I’m fine,” she says with a frown, “but — where am I?”

Song bites her lip. “I don’t know. The Dai Li threw me in here.”

“The Dai Li?”

“The Ba Sing Se secret police.” Song wonders how long this girl has been in the city. She wonders if Jet saw the same inexperience in her as Song now sees in this girl, in her easy body language and naive questions. She shouldn’t trust so easily; that’s how people hurt you.

Never mind that _Song_ had trusted Jet this easily. At just the possibility of meeting other kids like her, something had clicked, and all her father’s careful instructions on how to keep her head down and stay out of sight had gone out the window.

The girl’s eyes are enormous. “Oh _no_. No, no no. This is _terrible_.”

Song nods in sympathetic agreement. “I don’t know what they’re planning on doing to us —”

The girl is on her feet, and pacing around the cell. “Not just that. This city is in _danger_.”

Song blinks. That… was not what she was expecting. “From the Dai Li?”

“No. Well, yes, but...” The girl wrings her hands together. “There’s something else, too. The Fire Nation is infiltrating the city as we speak.” Her eyes go wide. “That must be why they tossed me in here! So, Joo Dee is in on it, and the police too —”

At the words _Fire Nation_ , Song’s stomach hops into her throat. “Hold on,” she says unsteadily, “what are you talking about?”

The girl frowns to herself, as though weighing her options. “Have you heard of the Avatar?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Song breathes, because who hasn’t heard of the Avatar and his miraculous return? She thinks of what Jet said to Lee last night, about how _the Avatar’s not so different from one of us_ , and Song has always been a woman of science, but right now, she believes more strongly in fate than she ever has before. 

“I… know him.” The girl clears her throat. “I’m teaching him to waterbend, actually. Because we need to stop the Fire Nation at the end of the summer, and he needs to be able to bend all the elements by then. And we came to Ba Sing Se because we need the Earth King on our side, but,” she sinks to the ground, despair marching across her face, “it’s too late. They have a Fire Nation spy inside the city. More than one, if locking me up is any indication.” She sees the shock and confusion mingling in Song’s expression, and winces. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t even introduce myself. My name’s Katara.”

“I’m Song.” The thought that she shouldn’t give her real name flashes across Song’s mind, but it’s too late, and besides, Katara is clearly just as lost as she is. But the Fire Nation — “Did you say there was a spy?”

Katara’s mouth forms a thin line. “He’s the son of the Fire Lord. He’s chased us all the way from the Southern Water Tribe. I recognized him right away by his scar.”

Song nods, slowly, and then Katara’s words catch up with her. “Scar?”

“Right over his eye,” Katara says, and Song stops breathing.


	9. "I'm better at puzzles than you are."

_and i don't want to see another night / lost inside a lonely life while i'm here_

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” the man says, and Longshot can taste the acrid tang of his own blood. He braces himself, but the blow comes too fast and too hard, and when the fist makes contact, his vision is suffused in white-hot light for an instant. 

_It HURTS_ , Longshot does not say, and instead bites his tongue hard enough to bleed.

The man with the face like beaten iron cracks his knuckles — or maybe that’s just the clinking of stone as his glove settles back on his hand. There were more men, Longshot thinks, and maybe there are still more, but right now this man is the only one in his field of vision. “You don’t like to talk, huh? Or maybe you can’t?”

Longshot keeps his face as flat as possible. The man stalks closer to him, half-smiling in a way that is terrible. “You want this to end?” he says in a low voice. It’s a rhetorical question, and Longshot shuts his eyes. “Just tell us. There are more of you, aren’t there? Spreading lies in our city.” He grabs Longshot’s face, fingers digging into his chin, and Longshot is forced to open his eyes. The man’s eyes are like chips of flint in his face, completely devoid of any emotion. That is, somehow, more terrifying than the hatred or fury Longshot expected.

“I’ve heard the rumors,” the man says, so softly he might be talking to himself. “Kids who aren’t Earth _or_ Fire.” His grip on Longshot’s face grows stronger, bruisingly painful. “Abominations who don’t belong anywhere.”

_You’re wrong_ , thinks Longshot, and he forces himself to meet the man’s gaze full-on. He had belonged when his mother had been alive. Even amidst the stares and whispers that followed him down the street, his mother had been a safe haven, a bubble of light in the darkness. And when she was gone, there was Jet. Jet, who had carved out a space for him and others like him, their own little slice of the world where no one shattered clay pots when he walked by, where no one even looked twice at his eyes, which were, by all accounts, brown. Brown eyes, like his mother,. Not eyes that caught the light all wrong sometimes, not eyes that might flicker with a hint of gold if you looked too closely, just like this man was right now.

“No one like that would ever be allowed into Ba Sing Se,” the man hisses, and Longshot can feel the heat of his breath on his face and he almost wants to laugh. This interrogation is a farce; this man is playing his part as the torturer, and Longshot is playing his part as prisoner.

Of course, he doesn’t really laugh. Longshot hasn’t laughed since his mother died.

The man releases his face and takes a step back. “Don’t be a martyr,” he says. “The girl already told us there were more of you.”

_The girl?_ The man means Song. Longshot is very careful not to show any reaction on his face, but he must be lying. Song doesn’t even _know_ anything about them, and she didn’t seem like the kind of person who would spill their unimportant secrets. The truth is, Longshot reminds himself, there _is_ nothing to know. They aren’t a terrorist organization, and they aren’t scheming to bring down the walls of Ba Sing Se and let the Fire Nation pour in; if anything, they would be the _last_ ones who would want that to happen.

“We know where they are. We know where you hide out.” The man is watching him very carefully. “But you can make things better for you and your friends. Don’t you see? We don’t want to hurt you.” He is holding a sheaf of papers; Longshot blinks, a little dizzily. Was he always holding those? “We just want one very simple thing from you. You don’t even have to talk.”

The stones pinning Longshot’s hands fall away with a clatter, and the man places a blank sheet of paper in Longshot’s lap. “Your leader,” the man says, and offers Longshot a brush.

Longshot doesn’t reach up to take it. There is nothing more absolute than his loyalty to his friends. The man smiles in a way that doesn’t reach his eyes, and drops the brush on his lap. “I thought so,” he says, and Longshot braces himself for another blow, but the man only sighs. “You still don’t understand.” He fans out the rest of the papers, and Longshot has to bite down hard on the inside of his cheek to swallow a gasp.

They are drawings of his friends. He recognizes Jet, Lee, Mushi, Song, and himself. There are more, too — a smiling girl with an unruly braid, a lanky boy with a mop of hair sagging in his eyes, a woman with a scar running down her cheek like a teardrop, a man with a nose that looks like it’s been broken many times. Longshot doesn’t need the man to tell him what he’s looking at; even in the faces of the strangers, he sees the echoes of his friends and himself.

“War children,” the man says. “Dangers to peaceful civilian life.”

_Clay kids_ , Longshot thinks. _Like me_.

“We understand that these people are, for the most part, not dangerous as individuals,” the man says. “It is the leaders among them that radicalize them. You can help us. Tell us, who has been organizing you? Gathering you? They are the one putting you and the rest of the good citizens of Ba Sing Se in danger.”

Longshot begins to shake his head, but the man isn’t finished. “Of course, the alternative is that this… movement… is a people’s movement. Which would mean that each and every one of you is a menace to those around them.” His eyes fall on the papers, and then snap back up to meet Longshot’s gaze. “Each and every one.”

Longshot understands. He understands perfectly, and he wants to disappear. One of them, or all of them. This is an impossible decision. 

What would the man say if he pointed to himself? If he claimed to be the leader? But with one glance at the man’s face, the flicker of hope offered by that thought dies away. _Of course he won’t believe me_ , Longshot thinks bitterly. If this man believed he was any sort of threat, he would already be dead.

What would Jet say? “Me.” Longshot can hear him, loud and clear in his head. “Come on, Longshot. Tell them it’s me.” 

But Longshot knows, with a sinking feeling, that he could never do that. They _need_ Jet, more than anyone else; without him, they will all fall apart. His mind races. Smellerbee and Lee aren't options; Jet would never forgive him. He would never be able to forgive _himself_. 

Longshot glances back down at the drawings. A stranger? The man with the broken nose, maybe. Or the woman with the scar. Someone he doesn’t know. A stranger’s life in exchange for his friends’. The thought makes him feel sick. 

But what choice does he have? Longshot shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, and then he realizes. He does have another choice.

“You ready?” The man raises an eyebrow, and Longshot _hates_. He hates this man and his question and this whole terrible city and he hates himself for what he’s about to do.

With a shaky hand, he picks up the brush and begins to draw.

The man leans over his paper. “A cup… a cup of tea?” he mumbles, and glances up at Longshot with a frown. “You want to play puzzles? I wouldn’t, if I were you. I’m willing to bet,” he smiles his terrible smile again, “I’m better at puzzles than you are.”

Longshot shakes his head violently, and begins to draw faster. The man watches as shapes emerge beneath his brush. “Fire… the Fire Nation. And tea.” He looks at Longshot questioningly. 

Longshot nods, fervently, and swallowing hard, he reaches for the drawing of Mushi. Old soldier. The man whose smile lights up the tea shop. The only one, besides maybe Jet, who Lee seems to trust. The man who brought them tea and sent them home with meals, who told them, “I’m so happy to see my nephew making friends,” a man who was once a soldier and who might have burned villages to the ground, who might have hurt people in the way so many have been hurt by this war. In the way that Longshot and his friends have all been hurt by the war. The man Longshot is choosing, is _dooming_ , based on a thousand maybes. And for a moment, he can’t do it; his hand freezes in the air. 

But then the man clears his throat, and Longshot imagines Jet in his place, then Smellerbee, and Lee, the girl and the boy and the woman and the man who have done nothing to deserve their punishment besides being born, and he keeps reaching.

Lee will never forgive him. But it’s all right; Longshot will never forgive himself anyway. 

  
  



	10. "None of it was real."

_two sticks and stone, still got no fire / once i was shown, but i was inside then / and spit on that good advice_

Out of all the stores, stalls, and shops in Ba Sing Se, the Pao Family Tea Shop is Lia’s favorite. The snacks are all right, and the tea, of course, is terrific, but what Lia loves most is the company. Mushi, the official tea-maker, always makes the time to stop by her table and chat a little. He reminds her a little bit of her grandfather, who passed away a few years ago; a sweet old man who’s always smiling.

So Lia stops by the tea shop a few times a week to share a pot of tea with Mushi (he urges her to try his newest blends; “I’ve been experimenting,” he always says, “and my ungrateful nephew refuses to assist me in the taste tests,”) and share a few tidbits of gossip that she picks up while working in her mother’s clothing shop. Mushi is always willing to listen to her talk about her busybody mother, terrible customers like the old ladies who crowd in and demand to try on a million things and then leave without buying so much as a button, and, of course, her boyfriend, Benjiro. The cutest, sweetest, smartest, most adorable boy in Ba Sing Se.

“Besides your nephew, of course,” Lia added hastily, with a glance at the scowling boy mopping the floors, and Mushi grinned.

Benjiro is the love of Lia’s life. He brings her roses that he carves himself out of stone during his bending practice. (“Look how sweet!” Lia squeals as she displays them for Mushi, and he agrees that they are impeccably carved.) He carries her home from the store when it rains so she doesn’t get her shoes wet. (Never mind that she only lives one street away, and owns rain boots; it’s romantic.) He gives the best hugs, and he always smells like peppermint. Lia loves him _so_ much.

Well. Loved him.

Lia buries her face in her seventh handkerchief and lets out a rattling wail. The store should be closing for the night, but Mushi only waves at Pao when the store owner gestures angrily towards the door, and turns back to Lia with a sympathetic look.

“I don’t understand,” she sobs. “Why would he do this? Was there something missing in our relationship?” She blows her nose loudly. “All this crying is making my eyes all puffy. Is that it? Am I ugly?” She tries not to think about the pretty green-eyed girl who she had caught with Benjiro in the alley behind his family’s pastry shop. “Is that why he doesn’t want me?”

Mushi rubs her shoulders soothingly. “You are a very beautiful girl, Lia. I’m certain that your looks had nothing to do with it.”

“Then _why_?” Lia wails. “It’s because of my family, right? Because I’m not a rich, fancy girl from the Upper Ring?” Without waiting for an answer, she bursts into a fresh bout of tears.

“No, no,” says Mushi reassuringly, but that only makes her cry harder. “It isn’t about you. This is about him and his own insecurities.”

“He told me he never loved me,” Lia sobs. “And he said what we had wasn’t real. The roses, carrying me home when it rains, all of it. None of it was real.”

“It sounds like it was real for you,” says Mushi. Lia wails louder, and Mushi winces but continues, “but if it did not mean anything to him, that means you two were never a good pair. A rain cloud that does not draw water from the sea will one day have no more rain to give.”

Lia peeks out from behind her handkerchief. “You mean, I gave him more in our relationship than he gave me?”

Mushi nods, solemn. “He did not deserve you. What kind of a gentleman would choose another lady when he had one so lovely right in front of him?”

Lia blushes. “Thank you, Mushi,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “You’re very kind. And wise, too.”

“Anyone,” says Mushi with dignity, “can be wise, with enough years behind them. Now, perhaps you should return home before your mother begins to worry.” He rises and ushers her towards the door.

The two of them step outside, and another “thank you” is on the tip of Lia’s tongue, but before she can say anything, there is a pair of identical _thud_ s and two men step out of the darkness. They are dressed in the same green outfit — some kind of uniform — and they approach Mushi with identical scowls.

One of them casts a fleeting glance towards Lia before returning his attention to Mushi. “You need to come with us,” he says, and Lia has the sudden, terrible feeling that if she were not there, the men would not be bothering with any words.

“May I ask where it is that we are going?” Mushi says pleasantly, and the man’s scowl deepens.

“We are under orders from the Earth King. Any uncooperative behavior on your part will be ruled as treason.” The man steps closer. “Let’s go.”

“Certainly,” says Mushi with a polite smile. “May I first say goodbye to my friend?”

The two men glance at each other, as though this isn’t covered under whatever protocol they are following, and then one of them sighs. “Be quick about it,” he orders.

Mushi nods, and then turns and embraces Lia. “Get home safely,” he says loudly, and then he adds, in a whisper too soft for the men to hear, “Tell my nephew that they’ve taken me.”

“Of course,” Lia whispers.

“And please tell him —” Mushi sighs a little, “I might have lost my sandal again.”

“O-Okay.” With a final squeeze, Mushi releases Lia and beams at her. “Good night,” he says, and allows the two men to escort him off into the night.

Even though Lia has just had her heart trampled into the dust, not a single thought of Benjiro passes through her mind as she makes the journey home. Not even that night, lying awake in her bed, do her thoughts stray to her ex-boyfriend. Instead, she thinks about Mushi, and the way those men had ushered him into the darkness, about his sour-faced nephew and the tiny tea shop that Mushi lights up with his smile.

_I hope he’s all right,_ she thinks, and resolves to be at the shop first thing in the morning.

  
  
  



	11. "Your hands are stained with purple."

_needed anything to keep me breathing / to prevent my blood from bleeding_

Zuko is trying to breathe, but it is very, very difficult all of a sudden. _Uncle would tell me to remember my forms,_ he thinks, and nearly chokes on his breath, because if his uncle knew what he was doing, what would he think? 

_He would understand,_ says a tiny, tiny voice in the back of Zuko’s mind, and he doesn’t believe it for a second, but he knows that Jet will never leave him alone, and it’s not that he _wants_ him to leave him alone, but somehow he feels like this vice-grip that guilt has on him will never, _never_ disappear unless he tells the truth. 

Zuko forces himself to raise his eyes to meet Jet’s, and that is the best and worst decision he could have made because Jet is looking at him like Zuko is something small and wounded, and Zuko is blindsided by a sudden rush of memories, remembering Jet’s voice, cracking and furious with the world, when he said “ _Please_ join us,” even knowing about Zuko’s scar and about his parents and about all the fire crackling in him so close to the surface, even then. 

There are many things that Jet does not know about Zuko. Any one could change everything.

Zuko swallows, very hard, and shoves his balled-up hands into his pockets, only to find the last crumbling remains of the tea leaves he had carried home from the shop. Somehow, as he grinds the leaves between his fingers and thinks of his uncle and of Jin and the fire inside her and Jet offering him his mask back, he remembers how to breathe. Slow and steady.

“Lee?” says Smellerbee, quiet and uncertain. “Are you okay?”

Zuko doesn't even know how to begin to respond to that, so instead, he takes his hands out of his pocket and offers it, palm up, to Jet and Smellerbee.

“I want to help you find Longshot,” he says hoarsely, “But you —” His throat closes up. _You won’t want me when you find out what I am_. He forces himself to swallow again and keep breathing. “You don’t know everything about me.”

Jet is looking at him with those same dark, hooded eyes as he did that day in the Lower Ring when Zuko was wearing a mask, and that made it much better because there had been something between them, then, but now Zuko is collapsing inward like a star and Jet is too stupid or too brave or too _Jet_ to get out of the way. 

_“I’m a firebender,” Zuko says softly, and lights a small fire in his palm. For a moment, no one speaks. The two kids stare at him and Zuko stares at Jet, sees the exact moment his face crumples into fury when he understands the depth of Lee’s betrayal, the exact moment that disgust twists his mouth into something ugly, the mouth that had been pressed against the fragile skin of Zuko’s wrist only minutes ago, in the tiny dark apartment, and it is fitting that they are under the night sky now and not inside because Jet’s fury will be too great to be contained by any sort of roof. Jet’s hands, Jet’s hands, on Zuko, or maybe on Lee, warm and firm on the back of his neck, solid and warm when their fingers intertwined, Jet’s hands are on the hilt of his swords, Jet’s hands are pushing twin blades into Zuko’s stomach and his throat, and Zuko chokes and retches and it is blood, it’s all blood and fire and Jet is looking at him in a way that says I will never forgive you for letting me believe in you. Zuko gags and there is blood everywhere, in clumps of cloying earth and sticky ashes and Jet and Smellerbee — Jet —_

“Everything about you…?” Jet is reaching for Zuko’s outstretched palm, and there is no fire, there is no blood, Zuko is blinking hard because the darkness is receding from his vision, and Smellerbee is peering at him with concern. 

“Do you maybe want to sit down?” she says. “You don’t look so good.”

Jet draws in a quick intake of breath and his thumbs press into Zuko’s palm. “Your hands are stained with purple,” he says, and the worry in his voice uncurls into Zuko and reaches something deep inside him. “Is it some kind of sickness?”

His question hangs in the air for an impossibly long moment, and Zuko _feels_ the laugh working its way into his throat, but he can’t stop his bark of laughter before it erupts from his mouth. Jet looks amazed. Smellerbee is staring. 

“It’s the iris. From the tea shop,” Zuko says, and rummages through his pockets to produce the crumbled leaves as proof. Jet looks absurdly relieved, and sinks to his knees with a sigh.

“I thought you were going to tell us you were _dying_ ,” he says, and there is a note of something raw and innocent in his voice that wasn’t there before, and Zuko thinks, _Oh no_. 

“Listen, Lee. There’s a lot going on.” Jet pats a section of roof next to him, and Zuko drifts over to sit down, almost without realizing how instinctually he obeys. Smellerbee joins them, crossing her legs and propping her elbow up on her knee to rest her head against her palm. “So here’s the truth — whatever life-changing revelation you were about to share with us about your dark past, it doesn’t matter. Okay?”

Zuko blinks, twice. “ _What?_ ”

Jet winces. “Um —”

“He didn’t mean it like that,” Smellerbee interrupts. “Jet is just trying to say that we have really important things to worry about. Okay? So whatever you want to tell us, it has to wait. It’s not going to change anything, and right now, we need to focus on rescuing Longshot.” Her mouth is a thin white line, and Zuko feels a jolt of guilt. _Longshot_. Who knows what they’re doing to him?

“But —” Jet lays a gentle hand on top of Zuko’s, and he is close, too close, inches from Zuko and no mask whatsoever between them, “ — if it really makes a difference to you, we’ll listen. It’s just,” he pauses, and glances at Smellerbee, and then turns back to Zuko, a strange, vulnerable look on his face, “nothing you say is going to change the fact that we need you for this. You know that, right?”

Zuko opens his mouth to say, _No, I don’t know that, because it isn’t true_ , but then he stops. He thinks of what Jet told him about his own past. About a dam and death and destruction. About the Avatar, and second chances. 

And he looks into Jet’s open, hopeful eyes, and thinks, _Maybe I can wait a little longer._


	12. "It's like the story with the ant and the pearl."

_a war divides their people / and the mountain divides them apart / they built a path to be together_

The lake is a flat black mirror on the outskirts of the city. Jet supposes he should be grateful for how dark it is, but there is something undeniably eerie about the still waters.

“Guards,” Smellerbee whispers, and Jet stiffens as he spots the two figures making their way towards the water. One of them lifts their fist, shifting into an earthbending stance, and a chunk of the ground slides up to reveal a tunnel entrance.

“Right,” Jet mutters under his breath. “So we need an earthbender to get in.”

“Not necessarily,” Lee says. He’s pushed his Blue Spirit mask up on his forehead and Jet can see the silhouette of his profile in the darkness. “We just need the Dai Li to do it for us.” 

“What do you mean?” Jet squints in the darkness. There’s another figure approaching the entrance.

Lee shrugs. “It’s like the story with the ant and the pearl.” A silence. “The teacher tells his student to thread a string through a twisted path inside a pearl, but he can’t do it,” he elaborates. “So he ties the string to an ant, and the ant is able to find its way through the pearl and do the work for the student.”

Jet reaches for his swords. “I think you might be onto something.”

They take the Dai Li guard from behind, and with a quick blow to the head, he’s unconscious. They strip him of his uniform and at Lee’s instruction, Jet struggles into the unwieldy armor. “This is ridiculously heavy,” he grunts as he adjusts the chest plate.

“Don’t forget the shoes.” Smellerbee offers up the man’s stone-soled boots, and Jet scowls.

“No way.”

“Here comes another guard,” Lee says urgently. “Smellerbee, you’re Jet’s prisoner, okay? I’ll sneak in behind you two after the guard opens the tunnel.”

Jet squares his shoulders and takes a hold of Smellerbee’s arm. “Do I look intimidating?”

Lee studies him for a moment. “Hold on —” he reaches for Jet, and Jet only has time to blink in surprise as Lee plucks the wheat grass out of his mouth. “There.”

“Let’s go,” Smellerbee urges, crosses her wrists behind her back, and Jet nods, grateful for the darkness that hides the flush creeping up his face. The two of them march out towards the guard, who turns in surprise as they emerge from the darkness.

“I’m here to bring a prisoner in,” Jet announces. Smellerbee writhes convincingly against his grip and snarls. “Would you mind opening the entrance? I have my hands full, as you can see.”

The Dai Li agent eyes her. “Of course.” With a thrusting motion, he raises the entrance out of the ground and nods to Jet. “After you.”

Jet nods back and shoves Smellerbee forward. “Keep walking,” he orders, and they pass through the entrance into a dim green tunnel. Jet glances back as the Dai Li agent steps in after then, and he catches a glimpse of a dark shadow slinking in behind the man. 

“So, you’re not really supposed to bring prisoners in when they’re conscious.” The Dai Li agent looks a little apologetic as he falls in step next to Jet. “I made the same mistake once, so I just thought I’d warn you,” he adds when he sees the look of alarm flash over Jet’s face. “Maybe just knock the boy out before you take him to the cell block.”

“I’m a _girl_ ,” Smellerbee barks, and Jet winces. 

“Huh?” The agent blinks at Smellerbee, and then glances back to Jet. “Oh, uh. Take _her_ to the women’s cells, then.”

_Women’s cells?_ Jet’s mind races. So Longshot and Song are being held in different places. _Crap_. “Um, which way are those?”

The agent smiles in sympathy and points down a tunnel that branches off the main corridor they are walking down. “Down this way, you take two left turns — then go down the flight of stairs and there’s a door on your right.”

“Got it.” Jet nods, and the man waves cheerfully as he ducks into a different path.

As soon as he’s gone, Jet drags Smellerbee towards the side tunnel, out of the direct line of vision of anyone who might happen to be using the main entrance. Lee slips in behind them. “Did you hear that?” Jet hisses. “Song is probably in those cells, but Longshot must be somewhere else.”

Smellerbee nods. “I’ll go after Song. You two need to find Longshot.”

Jet frowns. “I don’t like the idea of splitting up.” 

“It’s the best plan we have,” says Lee with a sigh. “Smellerbee can handle herself. We have to move quickly, though, before they find us here.”

“Fine.” Jet grits his teeth, wishing he had something to chew on. “We’ll meet back by the entrance in half an hour if we can’t find anything. Any longer, and I’m coming after you, Bee.”

Smellerbee meets his gaze, steely determination in her eyes. “I’m not leaving anyone behind,” she says, and Jet feels his heart twist.

“Me neither,” he says. With a grim smile, Smellerbee turns and heads off down the tunnel, one hand on the handle of the knife tucked into her belt. Jet watches her go, feeling a twinge of regret, like this might be the last time he will ever see her, but then Lee’s hand is on his arm.

“We have to move,” he whispers, and Jet follows him back into the main tunnel. They are cautious as they move, peering around corners and slinking through shadows. Jet itches to whip out his swords and _attack_ something, but Lee is very, very good at all this sneaking around. Jet wonders, not for the first time, where he learned such graceful stealth. Maybe if they make it out alive, he’ll ask him.

If they make it out alive, there are a lot of things Jet wants to ask him.

Lee flings out his arm and pushes Jet back into the shadows of the smaller tunnel they just emerged from. Jet frowns, but before he can ask about it, the sound of voices drifts in from the tunnel they had just been about to enter.

“ — say something. Maybe if we send him to the reeducation chamber.” Jet and Lee flatten themselves back against the wall as two Dai Li agents pass the tunnel opening. Neither of them spares the shadows a second glance; they are too caught up in their conversation.

“You know what effect the process has on short-term memory. It won’t help us —” the voices trail off as the pair continues down the tunnel, and Jet sighs in relief. Lee holds up a finger, a signal to wait a moment, and he peers around the corner before gesturing for Jet to follow him. The two of them step into the tunnel, which is much bigger than the one they just emerged from — there’s enough room for nine or ten Dai Li agents to stand shoulder to shoulder and block off the path, which leads to a wide stone door. A stone door without a handle.

Jet curses under his breath. “Stupid _earthbenders,_ ” he hisses.

Lee tugs him back into the relative safety of the tunnel’s shadows and slides his mask off. “Those two agents came from inside there,” he says. “Did you hear what they were talking about? I think they were interrogating someone.”

Jet’s blood turns to ice. “Longshot?”

Lee shrugs. “It’s possible. It might be another prisoner. But if we can get in there, maybe we can figure out where they’re keeping him.”

“Great. How are we _non-benders_ supposed to do that?” Jet’s tone is admittedly not so calm, but he’s still surprised when Lee flinches at his words.

“Wait, I suppose,” he says miserably, and he slides into a crouch against the wall.

Jet squats down next to him. “I _hate_ this,” he says vehemently. “This whole place is so…” he shudders, “... unnatural.” He imagines the treetop hideout that he and his Freedom Fighters had painstakingly assembled, and how lovely it had been to sleep outside under the stars. 

Their first night in their Ba Sing Se apartment, Jet hadn’t been able to sleep in the tiny boxy room. The walls were closing in on him, inch by inch. He’d escaped onto the roof, only to find Longshot already fast asleep up there, Smellerbee curled up beside him.

The memory is like a newly-healed wound, and thinking about Longshot trapped somewhere in this mess of tunnels below the earth makes Jet feel as though he is tearing it open again. He shuts his eyes and tries to think of something else.

“Humans shouldn’t live in tunnels,” Lee agrees. “Leave that to the badger-moles.”

His words spark a flicker of something in Jet’s mind. “There’s a song,” he murmurs, barely aware of what he’s saying. An old, old memory, half-buried in the mud of his past. “My mother used to sing it to me.”

Lee is very still. “Do you remember how it goes?”

Jet shakes his head, knowing as he does that it is only a half-truth. “I don’t remember the words. Just a few snatches of the melody.” He purses his lips, and begins to whistle.

The lyrics rush into his head as the melody leaves his lips, like leaves unfurling into the sunlight of his memory. He tilts his head back and the whistling becomes humming, which tumbles out into words. 

“Two lovers,” he half-mumbles, half-sings, “destined for one another, but a war divides them…”

Jet’s eyes are still shut, but he can hear Lee shifting next to him, and then the warmth of his body is pressing against his side. Jet’s eyelids flutter, but he keeps his eyes shut, remembering in a rush the way his mother would smooth his hair back as she sang to him, the melody of her voice washing over him and carrying him into sleep.

“A mountain stands between them,” Jet says softly, “so they build a path to be together…” He can’t remember any more words. As the tide of memory recedes, he suddenly becomes aware of how _close_ Lee is, the two of them side by side, Lee’s head resting on his shoulder. And when Jet opens his eyes, he finds Lee studying him. When he sees him staring back, Lee glances down and reaches for Jet’s hand where it lies in his lap.

Jet _looks_ at Lee then, at his fire-bright eyes, at his tousled hair, at his long graceful fingers that don’t belong on the hands of a peasant. _I want you_ , he thinks, and the sudden wave of longing that accompanies the thought nearly bowls him over.

But Lee isn’t looking at him now. Just at their hands, their fingers intertwined. “I’m sorry,” he says softly, and though he doesn’t say for what, Jet already forgives him.


	13. "Just watch. I'm going to win this game."

_i said “tell me your name, is it sweet?” / she said “my boy, it’s dagger,”_

Sokka is, officially, bored.

He was unofficially bored when he browsed every book he could find in their Ba Sing Se house. (Sokka asked Joo Dee four times — Four times! Come on! — if she could maybe find some books that weren’t about Earth Kingdom fashions or the life cycle of the gnat-beetle, but despite her assurances that she would get right on it, there have been no new books.) He was unofficially bored when he counted every window pane in the house (sixteen, three of them north-facing, nine of them south-facing, two each on the east and west). He was unofficially bored when he and Aang played ninety-two successive rounds of Earth-Fire-Water (Toph had refused to play, on the grounds that Earth could beat both Water _and_ Fire the way _she_ bent). 

But now, Katara and Momo are gone because his sister insisted she was going out of her mind listening to Sokka make musical instruments out of the decorative vases in the house, so she’s off schmoozing at some tea shop while Sokka is stuck at home bored out of his skull with no one to annoy. Aang is meditating and gets a little scary when he’s interrupted, so Sokka and Toph are lying on the floor and playing If You Had To Choose. Somewhere along the line, the game became a contest to see who could gross out who the most. Toph had explained the rules to him. 

“I used to play it back home,” she had told him with a devious grin. “I could make grown men puke with less than ten words.”

Sokka had smirked. “ _Please_. There’s a reason Katara still refuses to eat sea prunes. I’m the king of gross-outs. Just watch. I’m going to win this game.” 

By now, the game is on its nineteenth round, and Sokka is admittedly glad his stomach is made of steel. A lesser man might have given up several rounds ago, but Toph is a strong competitor. Not that Sokka himself is any kind of slouch.

“If you had to choose…” Sokka smirks. “Would you drink a cup of Appa’s spit or eat a bowl of Momo’s boogers?”

“Ha!” Toph snorts. “Momo doesn’t have enough boogers to fill a bowl.”

“Says you,” Sokka says indignantly. “He’s never wiped his nose on _your_ shirt.”

Toph considers. “Is Appa’s spit still warm?”

Sokka is saved from having to answer by a sudden pounding on the door. “I’ll get that,” he grumbles, rising to his feet. He’s mildly surprised to see that night has fallen. Katara’s been gone for a lot longer than he thought. For the first time, fear pricks at him. 

_At least Momo was with her_ , he thinks. _And maybe that’s her at the door anyway._

He’s half right. When the door opens, Katara and another girl spill in across the threshold. They both look disheveled and dirty. Katara has an enormous bruise on her forehead, and the girl has a cut on her cheek bleeding freely and is clutching her shoulder. 

“Katara?” Sokka’s mouth falls open. “What the heck happened to you? Who’s this girl?”

“No time to explain,” Katara pants, and she hurries into the living room, where Toph is already on her feet. As she passes Sokka, he realizes that he was wrong — there are _two_ strangers in the house, and one of them is clinging to Katara’s back, face buried between his sister’s shoulders. Katara stops by a stack of cushions and carefully lowers the kid onto the pillows. 

“Song, you’re an herbalist, right?” Her tone is urgent, and the girl with the cut on her cheek hurries to Katara’s side. “Good. We need to check for internal bleeding. I can do that with bending, but we’ll need painkillers. Can you look through the cupboards and find something? The kitchen’s that way.” She points, and the girl — Song? — nods and hustles into the other room.

“Sokka, I need water,” Katara snaps. “Toph, where’s Aang? I need all the assistance I can get.”

“He’s meditating,” says Toph, but she’s already halfway down the hall. Sokka rushes to fill a bowl with water, slopping some on the floor in his haste, and carries it over to his sister, who is now kneeling over the kid.

“Katara, what’s going on?” Sokka demands, but Katara doesn’t answer; she’s focusing on bending the water from the bowl to hover over the kid’s chest, where it begins to glow. “Seriously, what’s happening? You’re missing for half the day, and then you show up with these two _strangers_ —”

“They’re not strangers,” Katara snaps. Her eyebrows are pinched in and her mouth is drawn into a tiny line like it always is when she’s concentrating. “The Dai Li threw me in prison, Sokka.”

Sokka blinks, hard. “ _What_?”

“They did the same to Song. Luckily, she had a friend who snuck in to rescue her — and me. But they almost caught us when we were escaping. I shielded us from the worst of it, but Smellerbee got hit hard before I took the earthbender guards down.” Katara bends over the kid, clearly absorbed in her task, but Sokka’s mind is spinning.

“The _Dai Li?_ Does Joo Dee —”

“Joo Dee is useless. _Worse_ than useless; she’s working with Long Feng. And it goes even deeper,” says Katara, and then, like an afterthought, she adds, “And the Fire Nation is here.”

“ _WHAT?!_ How do you — why —”

The kid groans, and Katara winces. “It’s going to be okay, Smellerbee,” she says softly. “We’ll help you.”

The kid mumbles something, and Katara frowns. “What was that? Sokka, what did she say?” 

But the wheels in Sokka’s mind are turning away. That name. He’s definitely heard it before. “Hold on,” he says in a low voice, “what did you call the kid?”

“Smellerbee?” Katara leans closer to the kid. “I didn’t hear you. What is it?”

_Smellerbee…?_ And then the realization hits Sokka at the same time Smellerbee’s eyes fly open. 

“I need to go back,” she gasps. “Jet’s waiting for us.”


End file.
